You probably saw the headline about that big lawsuit against Meta(Facebook/Instagram). They are looking at a trillion dollars in damages for trying to keep people glued to their screens. While the number is huge, the real issue is not just about the money or the legal fees. It is about a business model that treats your attention like it’s theirs to sell.
The purpose of these platforms is not to help you get a job done. The purpose is to keep you scrolling so they can sell more ads. It is the ultimate middleman situation where they are selling your time and attention to the highest bidder.
They are being sued for things like infinite scrolling. That is just a fancy way of saying they built a trap that does not have an exit and it’s working exactly as they intend. In any other walk of life, if a tool made it harder for you to finish your work and go home to your family, you would throw that tool in the scrap heap. A tool should serve you, not the other way around.
I stepped away from this stuff about ten years ago, and I can say from experience that my life got a lot quieter in the best way. Some might need it for work or satisfy your curiosity to see what your cousins are doing. And sure, there are ways to stay connected. But there is a difference between keeping in touch and being constantly fed a diet of other people’s highlights and curated opinions.
If you want to talk to someone, send a text or write an email. It is direct. It is intentional. It does not come with a side of distractions or an algorithm trying to tweak your mood. When you move back to those methods, you are taking back ownership of your own headspace. You are deciding who gets to talk to you and when.
We want to leave the next generation something better than feeling miserable and a short attention span. We want to give them the ability to think for themselves and the competence to do things with their own two hands. Free yourselves and your time. It is about making sure you are actually in the room with your own life. Quality over quantity. The people you stay connected to will be the ones that are worth the effort.
